The Debate

Newsweek hightlights one of the stark truths laid bare for all to see of Katrina, the crushing poverty that exists in this country on a level quite profound for a nation so wealthy.

For the United State has long chosen the route of efficiency over morality in the economic world. For all the crying about a "culture of life" the GOP has never really offered a platform for a quality of life -- other than work hard and get lucky. That's been the mantra of the GOP since 1854 and it hasn't changed since. 151 years of laissez-faire, with the only substantial exception being the Theodore Rooesevelt years.

To the extent the Republicans have ever had a domestic policy for the poor it has always come in the form of concretizing what Democrats did before them. Eisenhower and Nixon affirmed the policies of Frankling Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson respectively.

There had actually been some gains in reducing the poverty rate in the 1990s.

In the last four decades, part of that obligation has been met. Social Security and Medicare have all but eliminated poverty among the elderly. Food stamps have made severe hunger in the United States mostly a thing of the past. A little-known program with bipartisan support and a boring name—the Earned Income Tax Credit—supplements the puny wages of the working poor, helping to lift millions into the lower middle class.

But after a decade of improvement in the 1990s, poverty in America is actually getting worse. A rising tide of economic growth is no longer lifting all boats. For the first time in half a century, the third year of a recovery (2004) also saw an increase in poverty. In a nation of nearly 300 million people, the number living below the poverty line ($14,680 for a family of three) recently hit 37 million, up more than a million in a year.

Here lies the legacy of the Bush regime, spend now on what we want (and it isn't the poor) and let the future worry about it later. Bush and the Congressional Republican Leadership have been the most profligate group in American history -- all while constantly praising their restraint. Accomplishing the amazing hypocrisy - bad policy two-step that no Democrat had tried before. At least Democrats earned their tax and spend label. Republicans cut taxes and then spend even more.

They will now spend money on New Orleans and the gulf coast like it is goin' out of style -- and all on middle class, predominantly white folks. What is the point of given money to poor people after all, they'll just spend it on non-profitable shit like food and housing (now referred to by some conservatives as "drugs").

To the extend Republican commentators have reached out to the suffering poor at all, it has been to give them the back of their hand. "Shoot to Kill" all looters has been nice coded language. Fear of a black planet.

And it will only get worse. This screw up has cost the GOP any inroads he might have hoped for from African Americans. But their is still plenty of opportunity to turn the hatred up more notches through a "law and order" cry to get the bigots up and voting. Expect a meaner than ever GOP in 2006.